


Get a Bucket and Bring the Damn Water to Him

by RiaZendira



Series: When you Can't Lead a Horse to Water [3]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Alternate Universe, Multi, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-09
Updated: 2011-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-27 02:45:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiaZendira/pseuds/RiaZendira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elizabeth knows the exact moment when she realized her husband was in love with a con man... she just hasn’t told him yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Get a Bucket and Bring the Damn Water to Him

El knows the exact moment when she realized her husband was in love with a con man... she just hasn’t told him yet. She’s also pretty sure she’s a dinner date away from falling in love with the con man herself. She likes to meet people in person before she plans them into the rest of her life after all, it’s just sensible... even if she’s never been wrong in her assessments of someone before.   
  
She knows the day Peter finally catches Neal before he even announces the big news. He comes home, eyes shining, smile nearly as wide as it was the day he asked her a question on bended knee. And then his elation slowly breaks and leaks off his face before her eyes as the realization sinks in that this capture is for the FBI, not for him, and that he may have just destroyed the life of someone he loves. El is certain there’s a way to fix it of course, she’s just not sure what it is yet. 

She’s never been the closed minded type, thank god. Conservative perhaps - no, that’s not the right word- romantic? She’s into classic elegance and she has demanding high standards. She’s slept with two men in her life to date, and been madly in love with the both of them at the time. The first she almost married, but decided she was too young to really know it was right. The second she did marry. She never thought of it as giving up on other opportunities, she knows exactly who she married, and he’s not exactly closed mined either- conservative, definitely, but he has his own classic elegance she appreciates. Plus, he’s apparently more versatile than she was previously aware. She can work with this.  

Nearly six months into Neal’s prison term, after far too long seeing her husband attempt, and fail, to lose himself in his work in an effort to avoid his pain and concern becomes too much for her to bear. She’s still not sure how to fix the situation as a whole, Neal’s in prison after all. She’s been so law abiding up until now- married to an FBI agent, that wasn’t really a bad thing- that she’s never needed to acquire a talent for baking files into cakes, metaphorically or otherwise, before this. She worries about Neal, even though she’s still never met him, but she tries not to worry so much that she’ll give up hope. 

Hope, she’s found, is the key to finding improbable solutions to seemingly impossible problems. For tonight though, she’s tired of seeing her husband metaphorically hitting himself over the head for following the law, which Neal did, admittedly, break. She knows that while she might excuse Neal’s behavior, it’s not really her place to do so, the law is meant to be objective, and objectively, no matter how she might feel subjectively, Neal is in prison for something he did wrong so her husband really needs to get over at least some of his self imposed guilt complex on the matter.    
  
“Honey,” she says, voice sultry, peering at Peter from under lowered lashes, “you’ve been working so much lately, it’s possible that I’ve been feeling a little neglected.” She gives the last word such an inflection that a man far less brilliant than her husband could figure out her import. 

Her husband, eyes now locked with hers, merely flips closed his work file folder and stands up. He’s taken half a step forward when she pivots on one slim heel and takes off running for the stairs, deliberately losing her shoes before she hits the second step. Even with the added speed being bare footed gives her, she doesn’t make it to the top step uncaught. Peter has her swept up and tossed over his shoulder by the second to last stair. He’s fast, but careful about it, and she laughs, head hanging upside down, hair bouncing everywhere. She can’t resist a swift smack to his ass either, just before he bounces her down onto the bed. His outraged grin is one of her particular favorites.

Her smug smirk in reply is apparently too much for her poor dear’s “wounded” dignity and she gasps as her shirt is lifted and smiles as her bra is nearly torn from her. She appears to have succeeded in distracting Peter from his distraction. Giving a small portion of the back of her brain to the on going problem of Neal’s confinement, she allows the rest of herself to focus on the amazing man in front of her, knowing that he’s probably doing the same. It’s not as strange as it should be to have thoughts of Neal as she returns her husband’s attentions with interest. For the first time, he’s almost a tangible absence. 

For the first time, he’s solidly real to her rather than a well loved fantasy held through her empathy with her husband. It is odd to realize that no matter how much she thought he was real to her before, he’s more so now, which means that before was clearly the illusion. She stifles the sudden urge to push Peter away and start talking about how they _have_ to get Neal out. Forcing her brain back to the present moment, she reminds herself that Peter probably still isn’t even aware that he’s in love with Neal, so talking about it right now is really unlikely to help the situation. She promises herself and the specter of Neal that she _will_ find a solution to this, for all their sakes. 

The first card comes the next day. It’s empty of anything but the pre-printed “missing you” message and a scrawled “N”. Tucked inside is an origami bird. It’s not a crane, and her brain immediately jumps to “jail bird”, though she’s not sure if the pun is intentional or just present despite itself. The envelope had been addressed to her and Peter both.  

She takes up studying the law in her free time after that. It takes her longer than she feels it should to find a potential solution, but she tries to allow herself a difference in learning curve for researching legal statutes and guidelines rather than cake makers and table rental agencies. Of course, “longer than she feels it should” is still not very long in actual time lost, or so she consoles herself. It doesn’t take her much longer than that to realize that she can’t figure out a way for this idea to come from her that won’t have Peter immediately denying all interest in it. She knows she’d talk him into it eventually, but he’d have far fewer qualms if he thinks it’s his own idea. 

She begins dropping hints designed to turn his thinking from how Neal is wasting away in prison to how Neal is wasting his  talents in prison and how it’s odd that he’s never found another criminal as hard to catch as Neal was. She wonders aloud what such a talented person could do for good if they were on the side of the angels. She watches carefully as Peter takes these thoughts and puts them together in no time at all. 

She’s fairly certain wheels have been put in motion the first time Peter comes home with a renewed spring in his step. A few days later Peter excitedly explains how he’s begun the process of getting Neal into an unusual parole arrangement so that he can be instated as Peter’s CI. Neal’s going to be at Peter’s side every day, helping him solve his cases. El long ago figured out that Peter often showed his joy in the more subtle facial changes than most, his eyes being the easiest window to his true feelings. She watches as her husband’s eyes light up like a kid who’s just been handed his fondest birthday wish and smiles to herself.

“Honey, we really should have Neal over dinner so I can finally meet him.” She allows the mischief filled smile to flash across her face. Peter stares at her, brow slightly furrowed in confusion, his eyes clearly filled with the question before he speaks.

“You’re up to something... what are you up to, El? Hon? Dammit, El! Come back here and explain that look.” El ducks into the kitchen, thinking evil thoughts of what a mischievous smile times two will do to poor Peter. She’s really looking forward to finally meeting Neal in the flesh. There’s no doubt in her mind that it’s going to be fun. 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/53161.html where additional author's notes are available.


End file.
